Ayr Carrick and Cumnock
2005 Results:
Labour: 20433 (45.4%)
Conservative: 10436 (23.2%)
Liberal Democrat: 6341 (14.1%)
SNP: 5932 (13.2%)
Other: 1906 (4.2%)
Majority: 9997 (22.2%)
Boundary changes prior to 2005 election: Name of seat changed from Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley.
2001 Result
Conservative: 7318 (18.2%)
Labour: 22174 (55.3%)
Liberal Democrat: 2932 (7.3%)
SNP: 6258 (15.6%)
Other: 1425 (3.6%)
Majority: 14856 (37%)
1997 Result
Conservative: 8336 (17%)
Labour: 29398 (59.8%)
Liberal Democrat: 2613 (5.3%)
SNP: 8190 (16.7%)
Referendum: 634 (1.3%)
Majority: 21062 (42.8%)
No Boundary Changes
Current MP: Sandra Osborne (Labour) (more information at They work for you)
Candidates:
William Grant (Conservative)
2001 Census Demographics
Total 2001 Population: 93131
Male: 47.7%
Female: 52.3%
Under 18: 22.2%
Over 60: 24.4%
Born outside UK: 2.2%
White: 99.4%
Asian: 0.2%
Other: 0.2%
Christian: 69.5%
Graduates 16-74: 16.6%
No Qualifications 16-74: 38.6%
Owner-Occupied: 63.4%
Social Housing: 27.3% (Council: 24.8%, Housing Ass.: 2.5%)
Privately Rented: 5.1%
Homes without central heating and/or private bathroom: 3.1%
The Conservatives have at last selected a candidate - William Grant.
I think this is one where we could spring a surprise; perhaps not win it, but at least make it very marginal.
Labour - 15000
Conservative - 14000
SNP - 10000
LibDem - 4000
In percentage terms, that would be
Lab 34.8% -10.6%
Con 32.6% +9.4%
SNP 23.3% +10.1%
LD 9.3% -4.8%
total votes 43,000
That would be a large swing - a larger one than I would predict.
But I can picture it in certain credible circumstances, and will bow to more detailed knowledge.
Labour down 10.6% sounds steep.
If only Ayr was paired off with Troon and Prestwick rather than Carrick and Cumnock. Seems to me that these boundaries have been almost deliberately created to wipe out any chance of a Tory seat on this part of the west coast of Scotland.
Looking at the Scottish Boundaries, there is a suspicion that the Scottish Tories are not as hot on boundary changes and their political implications as the English Tories are
Shaun Bennet is quite right. Troon and Prestwick were tradionally part of Ayr and were the seat just Ayr and Carrick, then Labour would be struggling.
Cumnock in particular looks more towards Kilmarnock than Ayr.
This was in fact put forward as a counterproposal by the Tories, but it fell because an Ayr, Troon and Prestwick seat would have meant a seat consisting of Carrick, Cumnock, Doon Valley, Irvine Valley and three wards in southern Kilmarnock. The splitting of Kilmarnock was (IMO rightly) felt to be unnecessary. Also, not that it counts for a great deal, but I can’t think of anyone who would travel from Girvan to Kilmarnock without going through what would have been an Ayr/Troon/Prestwick seat, which perhaps indicates that the links between Carrick and Ayr are rather stronger than those between Carrick and Kilmarnock.
I think a Labour majority of about 4000 over the Conservatives is more likely (16000 to 12000).
Perhaps I am a little optimistic here. This seat is quite close to my constituency (Glasgow North West) and I know some of the activists from here as we have been campaigning together (in Glasgow South). I think we could surprise people here by doing better than expected. Remember that Labour are likely to become more and more unpopular towards 2010.
The boundary changes have more or less equally divided the Tory vote into three Ayrshire constituencies, Central Ayrshire, North Ayrshire & Arran and this one.
If the old Ayr seat (pre- 2005) had instead regained the more Tory areas it lost in 1997….which would have reached the current Scottish quota then this would have been a nailed on the wall Tory gain. The current boundaries are far more challenging.
For anyone that’s interested, the revised BCS proposals for Holyrood retain the Ayr seat and Carrick, Cumnock & Doon Valley seat, but with some tweaking of the boundary between them. The Ayr seat becomes the urban core of Troon, Prestwick and Ayr itself; CCDV loses its Ayr suburbs but gains Dundonald and Tarbolton.
I’ve not crunched any numbers yet but I would imagine that the net effect would be to improve the Tories’ position in Ayr over Labour by maybe about a thousand votes. It’s harder to know what the effect would be in CCDV because the areas moved in and out are Con/Lab whereas CCDV is a Lab/SNP fight.
I would be very interested in any notional results for these new seats - am very glad the provisional proposals which seemed to split Ayr in 2, have been usurped in favour of these new changes
I get Ayr to:
Con 13374
Lab 9911
SNP 9184
LD 1984
Others 124
CCDV I worked out as:
Lab 13152
SNP 9132
Con 5974
LD 1166
Others 809
Will,
As the 2007 Tory majority was 3,906 in Ayr, the boundary changes appear to weaken the Conservative position.
The loss of the South Ayr in 1997 turned Ayr into a notional Labour seat. As South Ayr is coming back in back in your figures suggest that the North Kyle rural wards (area to the East of Troon) which goes to CCDV is very Tory - even more Tory than South Ayr.
Thanks, Will. For those who voted in person (i.e. excluding postal votes), I’ve got:
Ayr
Con 10,351
Lab 7,866
SNP 7,651
LD 1,694
Oth 116
and CCDV
Lab 11,263
SNP 7,792
Con 4,408
LD 991
Oth 683
the figures for which look comparable to yours.
Peter, I make the figures for voters in person for the parts removed from Ayr as:
Con 1222, Lab 931, SNP 832, LD 161
and the parts coming in from CCDV as:
Con 2036, SNP 1906, Lab 1882, LD 401, Oth 116
Reasons for the unexpectedly low Con total:
a) CCDV is now a Lab-SNP marginal, or at least semi-marginal, so the Con vote was probably squeezed a bit;
b) the ex-CCDV territory doesn’t just include Con heartlands like Alloway and Doonfoot, but also solidly Labour areas such as Belmont and Kincaidston (the latter hasn’t been in the Ayr seat since before 1983, so it wouldn’t have had any effect on the 1997 notional).